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Wednesday, May 05, 2010

This Blog Has Moved to Conservativeblog.org

After 6 years and 11 months and over 3,700 posts hosted at http://www.nationalcenter.org/Blog.html, Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog is moving today to a new domain at http://www.conservativeblog.org.

This decision (or one like it) was made inevitable when the software system we were using to publish, Google's Blogger, discontinued ftp support, which meant we couldn't continue to publish the blog the way we had been and still have it appear on the National Center for Public Policy Research website.

I was disappointed by Google's decision -- especially because it means I will have to abandon my much-loved "old book" blog template, which was designed specifically for this blog and the Blogger system -- but it would be churlish of me not to note that the company provided a free publishing system for over six years. We do appreciate that.

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Unifier-in-Chief

Thursday, April 29, 2010

General Electric Questioned About Its Attacks on Conservatives

David Ridenour at 2010 GE shareholder meeting

General Electric's plan to shed a majority stake in NBC Universal may be an attempt to repair GE's tarnished image with conservatives and moderates.

At the General Electric shareholder meeting in Houston Wednesday, I asked GE CEO Jeff Immelt about the growing public perception that General Electric is committed to a particular ideology, which isn't in the long-term interest of shareholders.

As an example, I noted that MSNBC, part of GE's NBC Universal, runs programming that is offensive to a substantial portion of the population. Keith Olbermann has called the Tea Party movement the "Tea Klux Klan" and has said the Republican Party wants to re-impose Jim Crow Laws.

Whatever your political outlook, I said, this doesn't make sense for GE - offending a substantial number of GE customers or would-be customers. I noted also that a large number of GE shareholders, including those gathered, sympathize with what the Tea Parties are trying to do or are members of the Republican Party.

I then noted that the Gallup organization has consistently shown that the number of people who self-identify as conservative outnumber those who self-identify as liberal 2 to 1. This, I said, is further supported by the fact that Fox News Channel has been far more successful than MSNBC, consistently getting more than double the viewers.

I then asked him to explain GE's thinking in going after the 21% of the population that is liberal rather than 79% of the population that isn't, but Fox is, with NBC's programming. I also asked what he was doing to address the perception - especially among conservatives -- that GE stands against them.

Quite a bit of applause followed.

Immelt didn't answer but went to the next question.

Later, I asked the questions again, noting he hadn't even attempted to answer my questions.

He said that GE has never attempted to influence the programming for its news or public affairs programs.

I asked: What about CNBC?

That goes for CNBC, too, he said.

I then interjected that its been widely reported that GE did just that (see New York Post article here) to curb criticism of President Obama's agenda.

Again, he asserted GE never attempts to influence programming.

Then he suggested that it was a moot point anyway because GE had divested itself of NBC Universal.

I responded, GE will still have a 49% stake.

Immelt then thanked me and moved on to the next questioner.

More questions about NBC Universal - both on its politics and on the proposed sale --followed.

What was particularly interesting is that on at least three occasions, including once during my question, Immelt said GE was divesting itself of NBC Universal - a point that is factually incorrect.

When asked by one shareholder how much control GE will have over the NBC Universal joint venture with Comcast, he said "effectively none."

GE will have a 49% stake in the company, have representation on the board of directors and yet have zero influence over the decisions?

Laughable.

This has all the markings of a company that wants to continue to influence NBC Universal programming (by serving on the board) and yet avoid accountability.

When Rachel Maddow says Tea Party activists can't hear what they're cheering for because their white hoods muffle the sound (yes, she said that), and Immelt is called on it in the future, he simply will blame Comcast.

The company has burned a lot of bridges with conservatives, not only through NBC Universal, but its support for cap-and-trade legislation, participation in TARP, and lobbying for stimulus dollars.

That's likely one of the reasons GE is reducing its stake in NBC Universal - this also may be the reasoning behind its gift of $15 million to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and becoming a presenting sponsor of Reagan's centennial celebration.

The political winds are changing... and all the GE-built wind turbines in the world can't change that.

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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Tea Party Race Bias Study Disputed by Project 21's Deneen Borelli

Project 21's Deneen Borelli pokes holes in a report by the University of Washington that claims members of the Tea Party movement harbor feelings of racial animosity on the April 28 broadcast of the Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends."

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Tom and Deneen Borelli Discuss Tea Parties on G. Gordon Liddy Show

Tom Borelli, director of the National Center's Free Enterprise Project, and Deneen Borelli, full-time fellow of the Project 21 African-American leadership network Project 21, discussed the 700-900 Tax Day Tea Parties across the national, taxation, ObamaCare, and cap-and-trade on G. Gordon Liddy's national radio program on April 15.

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Obama's Arizona Immigration Law Hypocritical Lie

Now,suddenly, if you don't have your papers, and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you're going to get harassed -- that's something that could potentially happen... That's not the right way to go.

A lie, actually, unless you steal the ice cream or commit some other crime while doing so, and are here illegally, in which case, you have every reason to expect the federal government Obama heads to "harass" you as well.

The federal government's Secure Communities Program checks the fingerprints of suspects during the process of a normal arrest, even when they are arrested by police officers in Arizona.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Pro-ObamaCare Corporations to Be Questioned at Stockholder Meetings Thursday

National Center for Public Policy Research staff members Tom Borelli, Deneen Borelli and Justin Danhof will be attending the annual stockholder meetings of Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson Thursday to directly ask the corporations' CEOs why they bankrolled lobbying and ad campaigns supporting the passage of ObamaCare.

Johnson & Johnson's CEO will also be asked why Johnson & Johnson is lobbying for cap-and-trade.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Los Angeles Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony says the premise underlying an Arizona immigration bill is not only "false," but also "nonsense," thus distinguishing it from other bills with premises that are true but nonsense, and other legislation that is false but sensible.

An article reporting on the Cardinal's sentiments, in the Los Angeles Times by Teresa Watanabe, says "the Arizona legislation, which has yet to be signed by Gov. Jan Brewer, would make it a crime to be in the state illegally..."

Up to now, evidently, it has been legal to be in the state illegally.

Mohony is upset over legislation that, according to Watanabe, would:

...make it a crime to be in the state illegally and require law enforcement officers to check the legal status of those they suspect are undocumented. The legislation would also bar people from soliciting work or hiring workers under certain circumstances, a provision aimed at the day-labor trade.

Mohony implies this law is comparable to children being required to call 911 to report the immigration status of illegal-alien parents, and says "I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation."

The Los Angeles Times says the proposed law "would not require people to report suspected illegal immigrants to authorities, as Mahony intimated."

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Monday, April 19, 2010

The New Republic States the Obvious

Today's New Republic has what seems an unnecessary story: "Why Elena Kagan Has Earned the Respect of Conservatives, Like Me."

Isn't her reason obvious? A liberal jurist who choose a career trajectory that would put her in line for a possible high court appointment is more likely to get confirmed if she has earned conservatives' respect, even when the President is a Democrat and the Senate is in Democrat control.

People who get tapped for Supreme Court appointments these days don't get chosen unless they structured their careers and public (and to some extent, private) actions accordingly, and being respected by the "other side" is part of that equation.

P.S. Turns out the article isn't about why Elena Kagan has earned the respect of conservatives like [such as] the author, but how she did it -- by being civil to conservatives and by supporting former clerks of Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Kennedy for positions at Harvard, in addition to leftists.

In an era in which "bork" remains a verb, it evidently takes very little for a liberal lawyer to earn respect from at least one conservative.

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Saturday, April 17, 2010

The Morristown Daily Record produced a video about the Morristown, NJ Tax Day Tea Party on April 15. At about 1:40 into the video, it covers part of the speech delivered there by Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie.

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Friday, April 16, 2010

Project 21's Deneen Borelli Calls on President Obama to Attend a Tea Party Rally

While being interviewed on the Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends show April 16, Project 21's Deneen Borelli responded to President Obama's complaint that Tea Party goers really should "thank" him by calling on the President to attend a Tea Party rally and talk to rally participants in order to "really hear what is going on" in terms of public concerns and discontent.

Addendum: Always whining about something, Media Matters for America is complaining that Deneen is wrong because, to quote the Media Matters website, "the recovery act contained $288 billion in tax relief." Media Matters is pretending it doesn't understand the concept of "net," that is, if the President promotes a tiny tax cut and larger tax increases, he really ought not claim the mantle of "tax cutter."

The Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl notes that President Obama's latest budget raises taxes by $3 trillion. The President raised tobacco taxes, which disproportionately fall upon lower income individuals. ObamaCare contains massive tax increases. Cap-and-trade, which the President ardently supports, would raise taxes still further, probably by trillions if not quickly repealed (admittedly, through a regulatory apparatus, but the money is lifted from taxpayers just as thoroughly).

Note: I fixed an incorrect link to Media Matters. I apologize for any inconvenience.

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Another Tax Day Tea Party Snapshot

National Center for Public Policy Research Executive Director David Almasi standing to the right (at least, from this angle) of his wife, Nancy, at the FreedomWorks Tax Day Tea Party in Washington, D.C.

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Black Conservative Deneen Borelli Addresses DC Tea Party

Like her husband Tom, Project 21 full-time fellow Deneen Borelli made it to the big screen at the FreedomWorks-sponsored DC Tax Day Tea Party tonight.

Based on the e-mail, certain press clips, and website comments Deneen often receives, I have no doubt there are leftists out there who will look at this picture, see Deneen chose to wear a white shirt, and consider it subliminal evidence that she sees herself as an "Oreo."

Racists believe black people are required to think the way their masters, the black and white leftists, tell them to think. All the ones I know of are leftists.

(DC Tax Day Tea Party picture by David Almasi)

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

On Erick Erickson's Tea Party Advice

Writing on Redstate today, blogger Erick Erickson is recommending that believers in limited government turn away from participation in Tea Parties in favor of other policy-oriented activities.

While I would never say that attending Tea Parties is the only activity a concerned citizen should participate in, Erickson's advice seems misplaced to me. In my view, along with Reagan's election and the rise of conservative talk radio, the Tea Parties gave been the biggest shot in the arm the limited government movement has had in 30 years. Did we tell Reagan to stop at one term? Do we tell Rush to hush-up now? Of course not. So why stop attending the very effective Tea Parties?

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Obama's Mystery Soccer Game - True Scandal Revealed

DavidB, a commenter on American Thinker, had this to say about a post about this "mystery" there:

The soccer fields you describe are at Fort Reno (that's the tower in the background of your photo). And, by fortunate coincidence I drove right by the fields Saturday morning. While I can't confirm the President's presence, I can confirm the following: 1) There were most definitely soccer games underway on the brand new soccer fields; 2) There were multiple DC Police cars in attendance with officers directing traffic (not normal); and, 3) At least a half-dozen black Chevy Suburbans were parked on the street, surrounded by a significant contingent of grey-suited men talking into their lapels.

So, if Obama didn't make it to the game, they sure were prepared for him. And I'm baffled by your description of this neighborhood as a "high crime" area. I live three blocks from Fort Reno and work barely a block away. Ever see a Whole Foods in a "high crime" area? There's one a block from that soccer field. Ask around about Northwest Washington and you'll soon discover that the only things "high" in the area are incomes and property values. Surely Mr. Obama's real offenses against the Republic are sufficiently obvious that we don't have to divine secret meaning from back-page accounts of his weekend activities. Oh, and I'll be walking home from work tonight, right down Chesapeake Street, in the dark, alone, unarmed...

I don't know DavidB and can't independently verify what he says he saw Saturday morning, but he's certainly right that "the only things 'high' in the area are incomes and property values." In fact, in chasing Obama there, however unfruitfully, some well-paid members of the press pool would have been returning nearly to their own neighborhood.

But don't despair, scandal-mongers, there is truly is a verifiable scandal here. The article in Time bloggers are citing as source of the soccer game's location uses an apostrophe incorrectly.

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Congressional "Free" Travel Not Free to Taxpayers

Members of Congress and their staff racked up almost $15 million worth of foreign travel in 2009, but Congress didn't have to pay the tab.

Under a Korean War-era law governing Congressional foreign travel, Congress doesn't pay for its own trips abroad, and there is no apparent limit on what the government can spend for Members' hotels, taxicabs and room service.

When a Congressional committee holds a field hearing in Wisconsin or a Member of Congress flies to a conference in Arkansas with a few staff members, those travel costs are paid for out of the annual budgets of either the committee's or the Member's office.

But when a Congressional delegation travels overseas, the accommodations are made by the State Department and billed back to a government account that automatically refills itself and has no spending limit attached.

The travel account dates back to a 1950s law that allowed the U.S. government to hold excess "foreign currency" in accounts around the world and use those balances to pay on-the-ground expenses of visiting Congressional delegations.

For years, the Treasury Department used revenues from sales of grain abroad or the income from foreign assistance loans to pay for Congressional travel, but in 1977 the U.S. comptroller general ruled that practice out of bounds.

So Congress amended the provision in 1978 to establish that "whenever local currencies owned by the United States are not otherwise available" to pay for local travel costs, "the Treasury shall purchase such local currencies as may be necessary for such purposes, using any funds in the treasury not otherwise appropriated."

Translation: The government can use whatever funds it has lying around to pay the travel costs of Congressional delegations overseas.

This language creates two conditions that are rare in federal budgeting. First, it establishes a "permanent appropriation," meaning Congress does not have to approve spending for its own travel each year, as it does for other Congressional budget items such as office supplies and salaries. Second, the program has no dollar limit...

After Obama signed the law March 23, a proliferation of scams involving bogus health-insurance policies has been reported. Some hustlers are going door-to-door, claiming there's a limited open-enrollment period to buy health insurance now. Not so. Moreover, even after new marketplaces open for business in 2014, door-to-door salespeople are unlikely to be part of the outreach. Scam artists also have set up toll-free lines.

Secretary Sebelius has gall indeed to issue a fraud warning - the entire ObamaCare edifice is itself a fraud, perpetrated on the American people by a duplicitous governing class. Almost nothing that the administration has promised about the health bill is true. To take but a few glaring examples:

The Claim - ObamaCare will reduce the deficit. The President even hailed his bill as "the most significant step" toward deficit reduction in years."

The Truth - Administration officials and Congressional leaders were given cover for this ruse by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which estimated that the bill as written would reduce the deficit by over $100 billion for the first decade.

However, that estimate assumes that cost control provisions, such as the nearly half a trillion in Medicare cuts, will actually materialize - which hardly anyone believes. As former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin writes in the New York Times, the CBO "is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out." Holtz-Eakin concludes that "if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games [from the health care bill] and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion."

The Claim - ObamaCare will "bend the cost curve down," reducing health spending in the United States and saving us money.

The Truth - By what economic logic does flooding the insurance pool with a new wave of sick individuals who cannot be turned away lower insurance premiums? Fantastical logic, of course. As the Associated Press recently reported, according to their analysis, under the new health care regime: "Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. That's when premiums for young adults seeking coverage on the individual market would likely climb by 17 percent on average." The effect? "The higher costs will pinch many people in their 20s and early 30s who are struggling to start or advance their careers with the highest unemployment rate in 26 years." You don't say. Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation concurs, saying that under ObamaCare, "There's no question premiums are still going to keep going up...it would be miraculous if premiums actually went down relative to where they are today."

In addition to serial and flagrantly false fiscal promises, the very method of ObamaCare's passing - bribery and backroom deals with lobbyists and special interest groups - undermines the administration's moral authority to chastise alleged health insurance hucksters. Politico helpfully lists some of the more flagrant carve outs made during the year-long health care negotiations with key interest groups:

PhRMA, the drug industry's powerful Washington lobbying group, cut a $90 billion deal with the White House and Senate Democrats. The AHA and the hospital industry cut a $155 billion deal with Democrats to help pay for reform. The union AFSCME successfully lobbied the White House to soften the tax on high-end insurance plans.

No wonder Secretary Sebelius is angry at con artists who are selling phony health insurance plans based on false promises - clearly, she feels, that's the job of the Obama administration.

This post was written by Matt Patterson, policy analyst at the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Our Bart Stupak Story

Bart Stupak: Good riddance to a dangerous Congressman.

Most of you will suppose I'm referencing Bart Stupak's double-cross of the pro-life movement, but that's not the only thing. In the late 1990s, Stupak tried to have this institution charged with a federal crime for publishing materials inconvenient to the left on health care issues.

Up to then, I had naively supposed prosecutors didn't investigate policy disagreements in America.

The issue in question was Section 4507 of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, which prohibited Medicare patients from contracting privately with medical doctors unless the doctor opted out of the Medicare system for at least two years, among other requirements.

Here's how Steve Forbes described it in the American Enterprise Institute's magazine (11/1/97):

...buried in the 1,200-page budget bill is a nasty, little-known provision, Section 4507, that begins to write socialized medicine into law. Starting January 1, 1998, American doctors will effectively be prohibited from treating elderly patients on a private basis outside of the Medicare program.

The government health care bureaucracy had already been using its regulatory powers to forbid doctors who accept Medicare patients from also treating senior citizens who choose to pay out of-pocket. Republicans originally tried to insert into the budget agreement a provision that would overturn this regulation, but President Clinton protested and the Republicans caved in.

Since over 90 percent of doctors accept Medicare patients, this law makes it nearly impossible for seniors to find a doctor who will also treat them on a private basis, outside Medicare's rules and regulations. Only doctors in the very wealthiest areas will be available to seniors hoping to engage in private health care between consenting adults. Astonishingly, even Britain, mother of socialized medicine, allows patients to contract privately with physicians. Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) is leading the charge to repeal Section 4507. He points out that the current law is the equivalent of forbidding everyone enrolled in Social Security from also investing his own money privately with stockbrokers: Such a law "would be met with disbelief and derision," yet it is no different from what the new Medicare law does.

To seniors, especially those not living in big cities, this had the effect of making some medical procedures unavailable to them unless they travelled long distances, as in small towns there might not be a single doctor providing the services they desired who also was willing to forgo treating anyone receiving Medicare for two years.

To conservatives, this provision was a step forward for government control of medicine and a violation of the civil rights of senior citizens.

To liberals, including the Clinton Administration, it was a way to restrict private involvement in health care. They further argued that doctors would overcharge vulnerable seniors for services, and that it would be better for seniors to be denied certain services entirely than to risk being overcharged privately.

Section 4507 received scant public attention when the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 was adopted, but seniors soon began to report difficulties. Simple and inexpensive tests sought by people with diabetes or concern that they might have diabetes, for example, were not in all circumstances covered by Medicare, and now seniors could not get them unless they found a doctor who had entirely opted out of Medicare. Similarly, men over 65 were barred from privately contracting with doctors for screening tests for prostate cancer, although Medicare did not cover these tests for men without symptoms. And there were other examples.

We, along with several other institutions (not all of them conservative), began to call attention to the detrimental impacts of Section 4507 on seniors. One think-tank published a book. Another published numerous papers and held at least one symposium. A seniors group filed suit in federal court on civil rights grounds. And a U.S. Senator (Jon Kyl) and the then-chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (Bill Archer) introduced joint legislation to repeal Section 4507.

Our work on this was routine for a think-tank. We published informational materials on it for the public and policymakers (for example, this, posted online at that time), press materials (for example, here) for talk radio hosts and editorial writers, and collected petitions from the public about Section 4507 and sent them to Congress.

Routine work, that is, until we got a phone call from a federal investigator. Rep. Bart Stupak, we were told, had a received a copy of some of our materials and had contacted law enforcement, alleging that the Section 4507 did not do what we claimed it did, and that our claims constituted mail fraud.

To me, this was preposterous, and as I was naive back then, I told the investigator to come over, and I'd share information about the provision with him. I didn't contact legal counsel, as I did not want to waste donors' money on such a ridiculous and (I thought) easily-rebutted allegation.

The investigator came over, and I showed him the book, and the policy papers by other institutions, and information about the Kyl-Archer bill to repeal, and press materials by the seniors group that had filed suit in federal court. The investigator, however, was unmoved. Just because other groups are saying the same thing you are, he said, doesn't make you right. Instead, he said, it is evidence of a conspiracy.

I was taken aback, as one might expect, and the investigator added his coup de grace: the Congressional Research Service says all of you are wrong on this, he said, and what did I have to say to that? He made it clear he considered the CRS the final authority, and believed that publishing anything to the contrary and mailing it would constitute mail fraud. I hadn't read what the CRS said, so I couldn't comment on its position. The investigator left, and faxed me the CRS document soon after, with a cover note that wasn't promising. The CRS document itself, however, was: The CRS agreed with our position entirely.

None of this should have happened, but it didn't end there. Before long, we received a subpoena from the U.S. Justice Department requiring us to turn over all documents, communications, etc. relating to our work on Section 4507. We complied, and also involved counsel. Our attorney phoned the Justice Department attorney whose name was on the subpoena and pointed out that First Amendment protects our right to publish as we see fit on public policy issues. In fact, he said, the investigator's entire line of questioning as to whether our papers were correct was inappropriate, as people have a constitutional right to publish things the government disagrees with. The Justice Department attorney told him she in fact agreed with him, but that, because of superiors, her hands were tied on the case. So we had to consider ourselves under active investigation.

We didn't hear anything from them for about two years (to the best of my recollection, between the 2000 presidential election and Bush's inauguration), when the DOJ returned all our subpoenaed documents. We never found out anything more about who at DOJ had considered the case worth investigating, but we couldn't help thinking it was someone inclined to discourage conservative groups from working on health care. No charges were ever brought.

So now that Congressman Bart Stupak, whose office thought it was perfectly proper to sic federal law enforcement on a conservative organization simply for publishing perfectly accurate materials inconvenient to the liberal big-government position, has decided to retire, I say good riddance. We don't need any Congressmen, on the left or the right, who believe in criminalizing policy disagreements, and who oppose the people's right to free speech.

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Richard Trumka: How Convenient

Three weeks after the fact, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka suddenly announced he personally witnessed Tea Party activists call Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a black Congressman, the "n-word" on Capitol Hill March 20.

Trumka never said a word about what he allegedly witnessed until Andrew Breitbart asked him in a public forum Q&A to help investigate union thugs who Breitbart saw attacking tea partiers in Searchlight, Nevada. Then, suddenly, Trumka claimed he personally heard Lewis get called the "n-word" and watched Congressmen (plural) get spat upon. And then Trumka changed the subject and called upon someone else.

Trumka's allegation, while a convenient way for him to duck Breitbart's question about investigating union violence, doesn't have the ring of credibility. Why did he keep silent until now? Was he walking with Lewis that day? If not, was he standing among the thousands of Tea Party protesters (seems unlikely, though possible). And who are these up-to-now silent Congressmen Trumka saw get spat upon, now that even Rep. Emanuel "Say It Not Spray It" Cleaver has backed away from his allegation that a Tea Party protester intentionally spat on him? Why have these Members of Congress remained silent? How is it that the nationally-famous Trumka was in a position to witness both the slurs and multiple episodes of spitting, when no one other witness to either have come forward (despite Andrew Breitbart's $100,000 reward)?

How convenient it is that Trumka made this allegation only when confronted by a question about yet another episode of union violence.

I strongly suspect the man's lying.

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Apologies

Got back from a trip -- David and I took the kids to an amusement park over Easter break -- and I had to spend some time catching up on other work before I could get back to blogging with a clean conscience. Apologies for that, and look for posts soon detailing some of our new projects, along with the usual policy information and commentary.